Yeah, that was Bryce. Selfish twat.
“Do you mind if I use your facilities? I’m getting pretty ripe.”
“Go on then,” Pops said, getting to his feet. “I’ll make some lunch.”
“Lunch? What happened to breakfast?” I looked around, but it was impossible to gauge the time from the sun when it was mostly blocked by all the trees.
“You slept through it,” he answered with a shrug. “It’s almost noon. Go get your ass in the shower. Once I start grilling, I have a feeling we’ll have a pack of hungry humans roaming around the yard.”
Noon? Sebastian really needed to work on his time telling or he’d never get his backwoods merit badge.
“Do you need me to run into town for supplies?”
“No need,” he said, with a snort. “Those fuzzy bastards left me about twenty rabbits and two whole deer on the back porch last night. Worse than housecats with mice, I swear. Bryce helped me field dress ‘em this morning, so I just need to cut everything up and get it grilling.”
“You know, cats generally bring prey to bad hunters,” I said, with a smirk. “Maybe, your grandson is trying to tell you something.”
He reached out to smack me upside the head, but I dodged him, snagging my bags before heading through the house toward the addition I hadn’t noticed the night before. Opening the door, I found myself in bathroom nirvana. Bryce certainly hadn’t scrimped on the design. Everything in the room was white and black, a mix of marble and tile, with soft overhead lighting as well as wall sconces—in case mountain man wanted to get romantic with his new lady friend, I supposed.
After peeling off my clothes, I turned on the shower and stepped under the spray. The pressure was amazing, and I just stood there for a minute, letting the hot water work out the kinks in my neck and shoulders.
I wished Bastian was here with me. The shower was more than big enough for both of us, and it would have been nice to feel assured that he still wanted me. After he’d reunited with Bryce last night, I’d been afraid he wouldn’t come back to me. Waking up with him had been a welcome surprise.
What was not a surprise was that Bryce was avoiding me. He’d been running for months. My presence here probably wouldn’t do much to change his mind about staying away. But hopefully, he’d at least talk to me, and I could convince him to come home. I sort of understood his need to leave, but it was time to man up and get back to work. Living out in the middle of nowhere worked for Pops. It wouldn’t work for my brother, as evidenced by the immediate need to add plumbing and electricity to the house. Hell, I hadn’t checked, but I was willing to bet there was satellite internet in the place now, too. He was a creature of comfort and wouldn’t be happy out here forever.
I turned off the water and climbed out, wrapping a towel around my waist before digging through the cabinets for a razor. I found Bryce’s electric one and went to work weed whacking the three-day growth on my face. When I was recognizable again, I got dressed then headed out to help Pops man the grill.
He hadn’t been wrong about the smell of meat drawing all the shifters. There were dozens of people in various stages of undress sitting on the lawn in small packs. Our clan was completely clothed and assisting Pops with the butchering near the house. Others were at the barbecue cooking. Another group was at the picnic table chopping up vegetables they must have pulled from the large garden Pops kept at the side of the house.
I glanced around, but there was no sign of Sebastian or Bryce. No surprise there. Bastian was probably still crashed out, and Bryce might stay away until dark.
“You’ll get whiplash looking for them,” Darla said, stepping beside me and bumping me with her shoulder. “I can save you something if you want to go to Sebastian. Or go find Bryce.”
“Do you know where he is?” I didn’t need to specify for her to know who I meant.
She smiled sadly then nodded in the direction of the lake before reaching down to squeeze my hand. I gripped hers for a moment then snatched a couple bottles of beer from the cooler next to the grill and walked off toward Agate Beach in search of my brother.
Bryce looked up as I approached, and I heard him blow out a sigh from fifty yards away.
“Nice to see you, too,” I told him. “Can I sit down, or will you run away again?”
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Brought you a beer,” I answered, handing one over as I settled down next to him.
“Thanks. Now, go away.”
“You’re seriously not going to talk to me?”
“Cole, if I’d wanted to talk to you, I would have called. I would have come home. But I don’t have anything to say to you.” He raised the bottle to take a drink, but I knocked it out of his hand. It hit the rocks and smashed, spraying us with beer and bits of broken glass.
“Well, I want to talk to you.”
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed. “Fine. Talk.”
“Thank you,” I responded sarcastically. “We’ll skip the I miss you and want you to come home bullshit. How about we start at the part where you asked Sebastian to leave me and come out here and marry you?”
“That’s not how it went down,” he said, finally turning to look at me. “Bastian told me you’d only read part of our conversation.”
“Maybe, if you’d bothered to have a conversation with me in the last two months, I’d understand what was going on. But you chose to just leave me, leave
